Jane

Fifty-​seven years ago today, on 22 July 1968, Sakharov’s “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom” sent waves around the world. The New York Times chose to publish the entire English version of the text, covering three full pages of the newspaper. Westerners were shocked to hear a voice of reason, with an emphasis on common values, coming from behind the Iron Curtain. The Soviet officials fumed, unable to understand how a Soviet citizen, whom they showered with awards and prizes, who was granted access to the highest level of services that money could not buy in the USSR, dared to risk all of that for a vague concept of ‘intellectual freedom.’

To be fair, Sakharov, who did allow the leak of his manuscript to the West, at first attempted to use his privileged channels of communication to engage in discussion with the CPSU Central Committee members and the Soviet premier, Leonid Brezhnev. He worked on his manuscript in open, with his Arzamas-​16 secretary tasked with typing up his handwritten text. He read some parts of it to his science director, Yuli Khariton, a brilliant Cambridge-​educated physicist. Khariton was petrified. Sakharov also read his manuscript and discussed his publication plans with Klavdia, his first wife, who by then was succumbing to terminal cancer. Just like Khariton, Klavdia expressed her fears; yet, she showed steadfast support to her husband, telling him he had a right to say what he believed in.

Sakharov felt the urgency of such a discussion in light of the recent Cuban Missile Crisis and rapid technological advances in nuclear warfare. Convinced that international security cannot be achieved without intellectual freedom and human rights, Sakharov sent his manuscript to the top echelon of the Soviet leaders, inviting them to start a dialogue with their Western counterparts.
Met with a wall of silence, Sakharov realized that he had no other choice but to draw attention to the matter from a different angle. That year, Sakharov’s Reflections became the third most printed book in the world.

Sakharov’s signature foresight is on display in “Reflections”: well ahead of his time, he was able to identify and analyze many problems that the world would face some half a century later as well as predicting the use of the Internet and AI.

July 8th had been a busy day for FSB, the Russian security service, as they carried searches in apartments of journalists and human rights activists in a dozen of locations in diffirent Russian regions. It appears that the whole action was connected to Pavel Andreev, founder of Revolt Center in Syktyvkar, Republic of Komi. On Tuesday morning, heavily armed and masked law enforcement operatives raided Revolt Center, later releasing their video; they also searched apartments of several people who took part in the Center’s seminars.

The FSB’s release heavily hinted at Andreev’s ties to NATO, further suggesting possible treason charges. Andreev currently resides in France, in relative safety. Darya Chernishova, the director of the Revolt Center now is under criminal investigation for supposed violation of Russian foreign agents legislations.

In Syktyvkar, the Revolt Center is named after Revolt Pimenov, the Soviet dissident who was exiled to Komi in 1971 for distributing anti-​Soviet agitation. Having served his exile term, Pimenov, a mathematician by training, remained in Syktyvkar where during Gorbachev’s Perestroika he was able to head the local chapter of Memorial. In 1989, Pimenov greeted Sakharov, who was arriving to Syktyvkar in the course of the Duma’s election campaign.

Presently, Revolt Center remains closed, although its social media expressed hopes of re-​opening in the near future.

Happy birthday, dear Pavel!

Pavel Litvinov, a living legend of the Soviet dissident movement, turned 85 on July 6th.

On August 25, 1968, Pavel was one of eight brave souls who held a public protest on Moscow’s Red Square, unfurling a famous banner, “For your freedom and ours.” They protested against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and all of them paid a high price for their defiance, receiving prison terms, internal exile and forced psychiatric treatment. The organiser of the demonstration was Pavel Litvinov, whose grandfather Maxim Litvinov had been Stalin’s foreign minister in the 1930s.

In 1974, having served his punishment in exile in Siberia, Litvinov was forced to emigrate to New York, where he continued to take part in human rights projects.

Pavel Litvinov’s remarkable biography can be viewed here.

link

Located on the Volga-​river city of Ulyanovsk (a birthplace of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state), a local museum, mostly dedicated to Lenin, talks about its citizens fighting the Nazis during the Second world war. Sakharov, a freshly minted holder of an undergraduate physics degree, was dispatched to Ulyanovsk in the summer of 1942.

His work at Ulyanovsk Munitions Factory revealed his engineering acumen coupled with scientific genius. A 21-​year old aspiring scientist then received his first patent for a novel method of testing the shells’ quality. In July 1943, Andrei Sakharov married Klavdia, a chemistry major who worked at the same factory, remaining in Ulyanovsk till January 1945. A house of his father-​in-​law bears a memorial plague in honor of Sakharov, while the museum’s exhibit proudly lists Sakharov’s scientific endeavours.
The recent exhibition including showpices connected with Andrei Sakharov is open until September 5:
https://73online.ru/r/o_saharove_na_volodarke_rasskazyvayut_na_vystavke_ulyanovskiy_tyl_frontu-149746

In July 1943, Andrei Sakharov and Klavdia Vikhireva got married, beginning their married life in a small house, belonging to Klavdia’s father, Alexey Vikhirev. Back then, the house was located in Zavolzhyie District of Ulyanovsk. Today, the house is at a different, more central location of the city: in the late 1950s Alexey had to take it apart and put together in a new place again as Zavolzhyie was to be flooded in the process of a hydropower plant’s construction.

The house is on the photos.

Andrei Sakharov’s story is unique in that he started out as a Hero (thrice) of the Socialist Labor, decorated by all the highest state awards and admired by the USSR leadership for his incomparable contribution to the country’s nuclear shield – then, a few years later, he was drawing Khrushchev’s ire by his principled and incorrigible position on the nuclear safety. In Brezhnev’s epoch, Sakharov was branded a traitor, ultimately sent to an internal exile in the city of Gorky. President Gorbachev retrieved Sakharov from the exile, urging him to return to Moscow and “to his patriotic work.” Boris Yeltsin greatly admired Sakharov, finally paying his highest respect by walking, jointly with tens of thousands of Muscovites, behind his hearse through the frozen streets of Moscow in December 1989. From that time on, it seems that Sakharov maintains a position of a unique Russian historic figure in that he is equally revered in his home country and abroad.

As this blog mentioned, even amidst the hardening of the political line in Russia over the past few years, Sakharov remains a positive constant, inspiring new monuments (such as the one unveiled in Mayak building in Nizhny Novgorod in the summer of 2023, and inspiring new exhibits and publications.

Yelzin Center in Yekaterinburg is a unique project, talking about the life of Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin. A new exhibition called ‘Petestroika-​40’ urges the viewer to re-​visit the historic events of the 1990s. Within this exhibit, one learns about Sakharov’s work alongside Yeltsin, in particular, their fight to cancel the absolute grip of the CPSU on the political process in the country.

More detailed

Through the initiative of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, with enthusiastic support of the School of Physics and Astronomy and through generosity of our donors, the Andrei Sakharov Excellence in Physics was officially inaugurated. This year, twenty-​five talented 3-​rd year physics students received Sakharov awards, supporting their early scientific endeavors.

The School held a colloquium dedicated to Sakharov’s physics. Professor Leonid Gurvits, an astrophysicist from the Netherlands, delivered a poignant address to the full auditorium. A lecture by Professor Yuval Grossman of Cornell University provided great insights into the relevance of Sakharov’s scientific work, highlighting the breakthroughs in the new areas, which arose from Sakharov’s early work and which earned the scientists several Nobel prizes in the process.

In Israel a junction on the busy road entering Jerusalem bears his name, called Sakharov Gardens. There is also Andrei Sakharov Street in Haifa. A modest memorial in a small town of Bene Ayish, lists the names of nine righteous people, who include, among others, Andrei Sakharov, Raul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler. Now, we are reminded of Sakharov’s legacy through the academic program at one of the leading universities of the world.

The ASF expresses hope that many talented students at TAU today will find relevance and inspiration in the legacy of Andrei Sakharov, a physicist who upheld the values of peaceful co-​existence and intellectual freedom, which are as relevant as ever today.

This year marks the 80th anniversary since the nuclear weapons were used in the war for the first — and one ardently hopes — the last time in the history.

In August 1945, Sakharov learned from a newspaper about the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He vividly described his horror at the news, while realizing that the world — and his life — had irreversibly changed. Sakharov, with his rarest combination of theoretical brilliance and engineering acumen, was subsequently drawn into the work on the Soviet thermonuclear weapons. His contribution was so significant that it earned him a moniker “Father of the Soviet Hydrogen Bomb.” Yet, Sakharov’s contribution to nuclear safety and peace is more enduring.

The ASF and Sakharov’s family are deeply touched by the installation of the stone monument engraved with the message of peace by Dr. Andrei Sakharov. This is a message which he personally entered in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum guestbook during his visit in 1988. The stone monument was installed at the Fujimidai Observatory Deck in Hijiyama Park on March 28, 2025.

Visitors from all over the world come to Hijiyama Park to remember the victims of the nuclear blasts and to express their will for peace. Nuclear weapons may never be used again.

This year marks fifty years since Andrei Sakharov received the Nobel Peace Prize. Fifty years on – and the prize to Sakharov as well as his ideas remain as relevant as in 1975.

To mark the anniversary of his Nobel Prize, the ASF donated a few personal items, which belonged to Andrei Sakharov, to the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm. The items – a metal glass holder, a wooden spoon used with a Teflon-​coated pan, and a slide rule – were the objects that Sakharov used extensively.

A wooden spoon, slightly burnt and heavily used, was his daily companion in Gorky, a city where Sakharov spent nearly seven years in exile (1980 – 1986). A near teetotaller, Sakharov enjoyed his tea, often drinking it from a glass with this glass holder. As for a slide rule, Sakharov had a few. Usually, one would be on his desk, while another one would be taken around in his briefcase – Sakharov was immersed in scientific problems most of the time, so having a slide rule at hand came in handy.

Nobel Prize Museum is located in a historic building of the old Stockholm Stock Exchange in one of the most beautiful squares, Stortorget in Gamla Stan (Old Town) in Stockholm. Created in 2001 to mark the centenary of the Nobel prizes, the Museum sets out to present “reflecting and forward-​looking and spirited memory of Nobel laureates and their achievements, as well as of the Nobel Prize and Alfred Nobel.” It is one of the most visited museums in Sweden.

The Voice of America, funded by the US Government, began broadcasting in 1942 to combat the Nazi propaganda with accurate and unbiased information. From the beginning, VOA promised its listeners the Truth, whether the news were good or bad. As the war ended, an opinion formed that the US could not be indifferent to how their country was portrayed around the globe. Initially reluctant, the US Congress approved the funding as the Cold War’s tensions grew. Over the next decades, the number of stations and listeners grew tremendously while VOA developed the highest standards of journalism.

Recently, Donald Trump ordered funding to be cut for the agency, which supports both VOA and Radio Liberty, the radio stations which have upheld the promotion of democracy and reported extensively on human rights abuses. Trump’s rational: “they have become outlets for radical propaganda.”

Trump’s decision was greeted with enthusiasm in Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, China and other countries without strong democratic tradition. This decision is being challenged in courts by both companies, with some of funding blocks already reversed. Voice of America stopped its work while Radio Liberty continues with a much curtailed version.

Back in the Soviet days, tuning in to Radio Liberty or VOA, overcoming the KGB’s pernicious radio jamming, was like a breath of fresh air, vitally important for sharing and receiving information and getting a sense that you were not fighting alone against the autocracy. These broadcasts shared news about many Soviet dissidents, giving extensive coverage to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner.

In recent years, the two multimedia companies broadened their audiences on many different platforms. For example, 2024, VoA and Radio Liberty together gained one billion of views at web-​sources created for non-​democratic countries.

The ASF expresses its solidarity with Radio Liberty and VOA and their journalists and staff.

Former Soviet dissident Alexander Skobov is determined to defend his political beliefs. In Putin’s Russia this requires immense sacrifice – something that may sadly become a reality in other countries, if they succumb to autocratic tendencies.

For Alexander Skobov, who has been in pretrial detention since April 2024, his political activism may mean he would die in prison. Nearly a year after he was arrested, prosecutors in Saint Petersburg requested 18-​year prison sentence for Skobov’s social media posts about Russian agression against Ukraine and Putin’s policy.

The 68-​year old activist, whose health deteriorated markedly over the year of imprisonment, is charged with “justifying terrorism” and “involvement with terrorist community.” Additionally, he was charged for his involvement with the Free Russia Forum, an association, founded by the world chess champion Garry Kasparov. The Free Russia Forum was pronounced an undesirable organization, which makes it illegal for Russian citizens to interact with it.

Skobov joined the opposition movement in the USSR in the 1970s and was twice forcibly placed in a psychiatric hospital, for a total of six years. Using psychiatry for political persecution was a common practice in the Soviet Union. Despite the pleas from his family to leave Russia after the full-​scale invasion of Ukraine, Skobov chose to remain, while admitting that he did not know what practical use his position may have in the short-term.